Architect. Son of the builder and architect, James Burton, he studied at the Royal Academy Schools under the professorship of Sir John Soane. However, it was to John Nash that Burton owed his picturesque and undoctrinaire neoclassical style. His father was one of Nash’s builders, and Decimus Burton was entrusted with the design of two of the Regent’s Park terraces. His first public building was the Colosseum in Regent’s Park (1823–27, since demolished), a Greek version of the Roman Pantheon, with a dome somewhat larger than that of St Paul’s Cathedral. Through the Royal Parks and the Office of Woods and Forests, Burton got the commission for the architectural features of Hyde Park Corner, the screen and triumphal arch (1826–29). He designed the Athenaeum Club (1829–30), of which he was an early member. He enjoyed great success as a town planner and designer of villas and small country houses, and had a reputation as an expert in the constriction of glass and iron conservatories. The most famous example of his conservatory building is the Palm House at Kew Gardens (1844-8). Burton retired in 1869.
Bibliography (updated 2024): D. Arnold, ‘Burton, Decimus (1800–1881)’, ODNB (online edn), (2004), 2019; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Kensington and Chelsea with Westminster South-West, Watford, 2023, pp. 296, 297–98, 305; H. Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 3rd edn, New Haven and London, 1995; F. Lloyd et al, Public Sculpture of Outer South and West London, Liverpool, 2011, pp. 253–54; P. Ward-Jackson, Public Sculpture of Historic Westminster. Volume 1, Liverpool, 2011, pp. xxiii, xxvi, xxvii, xxix, 88, 90, 92, 94, 133, 438–39.
Philip Ward-Jackson, 2011
Thomas Dewell Scott, ‘The late Mr. Decimus Burton F.R.S., architect’, engraving from Illustrated London News, 31 December 1881 (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)